With the coronavirus stats going in the right direction, all of us at C&G Newspapers look forward to resuming publication of the St. Clair Shores Sentinel and Birmingham-Bloomfield Eagle on May 27th. All other C&G newspapers will begin publishing on June 10th (Advertiser-Times on June 24th). In the meantime, continue to find local news on our website and look for us on Facebook and Twitter.

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With the coronavirus stats going in the right direction, all of us at C&G Newspapers look forward to resuming publication of the St. Clair Shores Sentinel and Birmingham-Bloomfield Eagle on May 27th. All other C&G newspapers will begin publishing on June 10th (Advertiser-Times on June 24th). In the meantime, continue to find local news on our website and look for us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Development on Troy, also known as “The dot,” is about to reach one year in its construction since its official groundbreaking last year.

‘Dot’ construction on track for May completion

FERNDALE — As the city of Ferndale approaches the month of February, its parking structure, the Development on Troy, will be hitting the one-year anniversary of its official groundbreaking.

“The dot” has been under construction for almost a full year. City officials are expecting the mixed-use development on Troy Street to be completed in May.

Last September, City Manager Joe Gacioch told the Woodward Talk that the focus at the time with the project was on excavation below ground, followed by foundation work and pouring 600 cubic yards of concrete to fill the basement level deck.

Four months later, Gacioch said that most of the construction pours were completed prior to the new year. He also said the winter season was calculated into the project timeline, so the recent snow hasn’t been a factor.

“By the end of February, we expect the concrete for the parking structure to be completed,” he said. “After that, we’re going to be working on a lot of the internal stuff. We’ll begin work on the West Troy streetscape in March.”

As the concrete pouring was the majority of the job, Gacioch said, once that reaches its expected end in February, construction manager Colasante Construction will prepare to finish the public parking in a way that will integrate it with the office component that will be done by Versa Wanda LLC.

If the opportunity arises where a significant portion of the parking structure is finished before the project’s completion date, Gacioch said the city could attempt to obtain a permit to open up a section of The dot.

“My hope is that we can open up a portion of the parking deck — probably the basement portion, which would restore over 100 spaces — while there is internal work that is going on, on level 2, level 3 and level 4,” he said.

The leadership of the city’s Downtown Development Authority feels that the DDA has done its best in helping businesses during the period after The dot closed off an entire parking lot, including using ride-share coupons and valets in order to mitigate the lack of parking.

“We’ve worked really hard to keep lines of communication open with the businesses so that, when they have questions or when they hear a rumor … because you know how information spreads sometimes — false information spreads — so we worked really hard to communicate with them in addition to those mitigation strategies,” Executive Director Lena Stevens said.

When the The dot’s construction is completed, Stevens said, she thinks the DDA will have to put some consideration into advertising the increased parking. She referenced how Royal Oak had banners on some of its parking structures that promoted parking there.

“It’s not immediately visible the same way as a surface parking lot is,” she said. “I do think we’re going to have to look at making sure people know it’s there, and making sure people use it.”